On-line personalized radio service has demonstrated its appeal to music fans as evidenced by the continued growth of personalized radio service providers such as Pandora, LastFM and Slacker. These providers assemble personalized playlists for users by accessing a large music library where each song has a metadata field containing ratings on multiple stylistic parameters. A user inputs a preferred music style, and the provider's system extracts songs from the library for the playlist based on correlation to the song metadata field. Advantageously, users are provided with the capability to accelerate their discovery of new content which is largely aligned with their personal preferences, by skipping over content in the playlist which the user finds uninteresting.
Conventional personalized radio services such as Pandora, however, lack the advantages of exposing users to diverse and professionally curated content delivered by a program service such as a SDARS, for example, as provided by Sirius XM Radio, Inc. For example, SDARS provides a multitude of program channels covering a different types of content (e.g., different genres of music such as rock, country, jazz, classical, among others, a variety of different program channels within each music genre, as well as news, sports, comedy and other types of programming) that is continually researched, discovered, updated and curated (e.g., with disk jockey or “DJ” commentary) by programmers who are knowledgeable with that particular type of content. A need therefore exists for a radio service that is broadcast, streamed or otherwise transmitted to provide updated content and a spontaneous listening experience (i.e., a traditional broadcast experience where a user is surprised by unexpected curated content) with greater opportunity for exposure to new music and other types of content. Further, a need exists for a live broadcast or streamed radio offering with low cost hardware that does not require a large local song database to be built over time at a receiver to enable exposure to content simultaneously transmitted on multiple channels.
Conventional personalized radio services such as Pandora and Slacker enable users to set up different playlists for different genre preferences such as alternative, classical and comedy, but do not provide the capability to mix diverse personal content preferences into a single playlist. For example, conventional personalized radio services do not carry non-music tracks or segments (e.g., comedy tracks) which some users might like in a mixed or blended channel playlist. A need exists for a transmitted programming service that allows the subscriber to select from among the diverse content channels simultaneously transmitted in a programming stream to build a personalized radio channel playlist from both music channels and talk channels (e.g., comedy channels), the content of which is not typically provided in the online libraries of conventional personalized radio service providers. A need also exists to expose users to diverse preferred content in a single continuous playlist without requiring manual interaction or forethought to change playlists or channels.
While satellite radio offers more than 100 channels of audio content, after initially exploring the content offering, subscribers typically narrow their listening choices to 10 or fewer favorite channels, which may be any combination of music and talk channels. For example, a subscriber may prefer listening to popular music and may preset 5 or 6 popular music channels on the radio, along with a comedy channel and news channel. With present radio receiver hardware, the subscriber is limited to listening to one channel at a time and therefore misses the opportunity to be exposed to content simultaneously broadcast on the other favorite channels. A need therefore exists for a satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS)-based personal radio service that provides the subscriber with an option to be exposed to content simultaneously broadcast on multiple channels selected for building a personalized radio channel playlist.
Even with only a subset of channels preferred by user, a provider of diverse curated content such as Sirius XM Radio Inc. can provide users with a spontaneous listening experience (i.e., traditional broadcast experience where a user is surprised by unexpected curated content) and less predictable enjoyment of known and, mostly likely preferred, subset of channels. Such spontaneous enjoyment of diverse, curated content can expose a user to more content of interest than relying solely on user preferences provided on an on-line radio service, for example.
Conventional personalized radio services are disadvantageous in that user interaction with a computer is required to build the personalized playlist. A need exists for a personalized radio services that allows users who enjoy listening to music while driving to build a personalized radio channel playlist using a vehicle-installed radio receiver, thereby personalizing their received programming choices.
The advent of IP point-to-point streaming has enabled the delivery of music channels personalized to likes of each subscriber (Personalized Radio). The traditional broadcast services (point-to-multipoint) are more constrained and better fit for the delivery of a fixed number of music channels from which subscribers can choose from (traditional radio services). The advantage of the broadcast delivery model is typically wider coverage area for less infrastructure cost and bandwidth (when number of users per cell is greater than number of fixed channels). A disadvantage of the broadcast delivery model is the inability to deliver fully personalized channels for each subscriber. With the popularity of IP-based Personalized Radio services, however, there is a desire to also provide some level of personalized radio features over existing broadcast radio services such as SDARS.
A need therefore exists for a broadcast personalization service that allows for personalization when consuming curated program content. Even with channel descriptions of program content based on content genre, for example, and in some cases selected characteristics of content within a channel's genre, users may still prefer some of the curated content on a programmed channel over other content transmitted on that channel. Accordingly, a need exists for a personalization function that allows a guest disk jockey or “DJ” or celebrity or other curator to indicate which content segments they prefer among content segments that are to be transmitted on plural program channels. Users could then select a particular DJ or curator whose tastes in content matches their own and be exposed to content, as well as other program channels, that they may not otherwise have selected or tuned into their receiver.
Further, in the context of IP streaming of transmitted curated content, a need exists for a personalization service or function that allows users to apply their preferences to filter an IP transmitted channel of curated content, and to add customized playlists or filtered content from multiple program channels to create a more personalized, mixed IP streaming program channel from a source of program channels such as the on-line service of a SDARS provided by Sirius XM Radio Inc. or other curated program channel provider.